Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Hideaway by Penelope Douglas

51 reviews

milena99's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Misogyny, Death of parent, Blood, Death, and Sexism

Minor: Animal cruelty and Rape

laurakwiecinski's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Sexual content, Death, Murder, Violence, Animal cruelty, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Alcohol, and Torture

shayrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Hideaway is the 2nd book in the Devil's Night series and you do want to read the 1st book 1st so you have the history this story builds on. 

This book is focused on Kai and his love interest, Banks. Each of the 4 MMCs in this series are coming to terms with the crimes that sent 3 of them to prison, the imprisonment and the events following their return to normal life. But Kai has another secret that he is trying to protect. Banks is the only one who can help them find the one estranged MMC and the one who knows the secret.

It becomes a cat and mouse game to see who can outsmart who and get the upper hand. All while Banks and Kai are steadily drawn together. He knows she has secrets of her own and she has made it clear her loyalty is to the other MMC. 

Penelope Douglas keeps you guessing throughout the book as to what will happen next. The story is also told through flashbacks of memories of from both Kai and Banks to reveal more of the story and motivations for each character.

There is good chemistry between our characters and I love the spice. The seduction leading to the spice raises the heat level 🥵

One of my favorite side characters is Alex. I love a woman, who is not afraid to go for what she wants and make absolutely no apologies for it!

I listened to this book performed by Tatiana Sokolov and Jeremy York. Both performers were able to bring me into the story and provide different voices for the characters. This is so important when listening so you don't get confused as to who is speaking when. My only issue is Jeremy doesn't have a good voice for female characters. (I guess he's too manly 😉)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Self harm, Animal cruelty, Murder, Rape, Physical abuse, Violence, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Bullying, and Alcoholism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Adult/minor relationship, Self harm, Child abuse, Murder, Abandonment, Addiction, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, and Sexual assault

nineinchnails's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

for the most part i did prefer this to corrupt (i found the characters a lot more interesting) but for some reason their romance didn’t really click for me. i think it was because there was so much focus on damon (don’t get me wrong i love that too) that developing their relationship kinda took a backseat and made this book feel like a prequel for damon’s book. despite not feeling much for the relationship i did love the MCs in this book and the book in general but i don’t think it holds up as an independent romance as well as its predecessor so it might be a disappointing read for people.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Sexual content

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Incest, Addiction, Sexual violence, Rape, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Self harm

Minor: Animal cruelty and Abandonment

koistyfishy's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

2 Confession Booth Stars⭐
Spicy Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

I was so excited to read this after I loved Corrupt but all I got was one hell of a frustrating book that just left me grumpy and confused. I was incredibly tempted to DNF this at 80% since the story at that point seemed to have lost the plot (literally) but since this was a buddy read with the gorgeous Ri 🖤 (and she had already finished it), I decided to grin my damn teeth together and finish whatever the eff this was.

I wanted this book to feel like a car crash I couldn't look away from, and it was a crash all right.

This is book two in the Devil's Night series and needs to be read after the first book, Corrupt, even though it is a new couple... Kai and Banks.

So let's start off with Kai as a character, because he was THE ONLY PERSON IN THIS BOOK that I actually liked. He had depth to him. He had some emotional baggage, but he could work through that. You could see that he had this innate sense of loyalty that he wanted to impress his family, but he also had this tie to his friends. He genuinely cared about the people around him and eventually Banks. It also became very clear, very quickly that he had been infatuated with Banks for years.

Banks ultimately "saw him" for who he truly was, so he was basically enamoured and obsessed with her and could not keep his mind off this enigmatic person. He just couldn't seem to pin down or understand why she was so attached to Damon and why she was so obsessed with him...

Then we have Banks who, quite frankly, has the most split personality I have ever read about. She is more topsy-turvy than that Katy Perry song as she would be saying something and then would say something completely out of the blue in the next sentence. Any time she would get close to having a real conversation with Kai or you were shown some depth to her personality, it would be pushed aside and the two would have sex. Being a person who LOVES to see character development, it annoyed the crap out of me to see this deflected... I wanted her to struggle through her demons ON PAGE WITH ME. ANY TIME it was close, there goes the panties...

I felt like I don't know her at all and that she was almost one dimensional (in her split personality) as she would be meek one minute and then hard ass another and her inner dialogue was the same thought over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. She's constantly indecisive. Constantly. Like in this weird "I hate you, but I love you". "I need to be near you. But I can't stand to be near you". I have no idea who she is. And yes, it might be because she grew up in basically a cage and was fed scraps by everybody around her, but she just did not do it for me....

Then this book was filled with nothing but plot holes, illogical decisions and, aspects that just made no sense. The ending was even more so... Everything was culminating in this big thing that was over in about 2 seconds flat. Nothing was really resolved. Nothing really comes to a close, except she now has 9 dogs and 2 snakes...

and a husband

There's also something about the way Penelope Douglas writes... that ALSO frustrated me. It was present in Corrupt but way more prevalent in this book as I wasn't enjoying this one. And that is she purposefully has characters make decisions off-page because you're not in their POV and when you catch up to them (mostly with the characters whose POV you are in), that decision or action is NEVER explained. You are just meant to accept it and move on with the plot. If I'm just getting the plot thrown at me and nothing's really developing, I end up frustrated.

Everyone in this book needs therapy. They are messed up and some are just stupid. Half the conflict in this could have been solved by talking to people...

Will I pick up the next book?
Yes. Because it's Damon's Story. And what we've seen about it in this book as he is a very prevalent side character in this book, intrigued me that I want to find out what is going on in his fucked up mind. But I'm not sure when because right now, Hide Away has left a sour taste in my mouth. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Rape, Self harm, and Sexual assault

Minor: Animal cruelty

lauryneball's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Violence, Self harm, Rape, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Murder, and Animal cruelty

booklloveer101's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Bullying, Child abuse, Mental illness, Abandonment, Confinement, Cursing, Gaslighting, Addiction, Alcoholism, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

souris_de_bibliotheque's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Child abuse, Sexism, Self harm, Rape, Alcohol, Pedophilia, Cursing, Animal cruelty, Murder, Death, Sexual violence, and Violence

bigbookslay's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

KAI AND BANKS ARE THE LOML

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Incest, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Bullying, Misogyny, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Blood, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Abandonment, Body shaming, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Addiction, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Domestic abuse

dkgreads's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

For a book that’s supposed to be about Kai, it sure seemed like it was more about Damon than anything. It was also really sloooooooow. And there was, like, ZERO chemistry between Kai and Banks. This one didn’t really do it for me. On to the next I guess…

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Mental illness, Murder, Death of parent, Rape, Self harm, Pedophilia, and Animal cruelty